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A Wine Award That Seems Easy To Come By

FOR wine drinkers around the country, finding a restaurant with a Wine Spectator award has become a reassuring sign. It has come to mean that the restaurant's wine list, wine service and wine storage have been held up to the discerning light of one of some of the nation's most well-respected wine critics, and that it has triumphed.

Or has it? What many consumers do not realize is just how these certificates -- often framed and proudly hung at the entrance of the restaurant -- are awarded.

In the August issue of Wine Spectator, out on newsstands at the end of this month, the magazine cites more than 3,300 restaurants as winners in three levels of competition.

But with such a large number of winners, perhaps competition is too strong a word. Of the 3,360 awards granted this year, from a pool of 3,573 entrants, 2,808 received the basic award. Only the winners of the Grand Award, the magazine's top award, of which there are 89 this year, are ever inspected; 3,271 restaurants simply sent in copies of their wine lists and menus, a cover sheet describing their wine programs and a check for $175 -- and walked away winners.

''The basic award is not that hard to get,'' said Thomas Matthews, the executive editor of Wine Spectator. ''At that level,'' Mr. Matthews added, ''we're trying to bring people into a wine consciousness. We're trying to be as inclusive as possible. If they fail, it means they have done something fundamentally wrong, like not listing vintages.'' But that is not always clear to customers, who see the award framed and prominently displayed. ''A wine list award is a great credential,'' said Alex Czinki, the owner of Villa Ristorante Italiano in Petoskey, Mich. ''It does draw guests. It's a certificate of authenticity as far as the wine list goes. It makes the guest feel comfortable.''

About the small number of inspections, Mr. Matthews said, ''I admit that compared with the Michelin Guide, it's a weakness in the system. But we're not really promising that we're judging the restaurant. We're judging the wine list at the lower level.''

This is true. On Wine Spectator's Web site, guidelines for all three awards are clearly defined. There is no indication that the judges would ever inspect a restaurant.

It is a little bit like a grade-school graduation, when teachers do their best to recognize each student to maintain the students' self-esteem. Winners of the Award of Excellence and the Best of Award of Excellence, the middle-level award, receive a large certificate with the name of the restaurant written in calligraphy, and are listed in the magazine's annual dining guide, which appears in the August issue.

For a restaurant in a small town, it may be its only shot at national advertising. A two-inch black-and-white classified ad in the back of the magazine costs about $1,140.

Recently the magazine, which has a circulation of about 350,000, began charging an application fee for the contest. Last year, it was $150; this year it was $175. And with the 3,573 restaurants that entered this year, that means Wine Spectator brought in $625,275. Next year, the magazine will raise the fee to $200. Restaurants must reapply each year.

Wine Spectator began its restaurant awards program in 1981. That year, 13 restaurants were given the Grand Award, which was then the only prize. Until 2001, restaurants applied without charge.

In the late 1990's, the number of applications exploded. Now, Wine Spectator employs two people full time whose primary responsibility is to work on the awards. According to Mr. Matthews, there are dedicated phone and fax lines, as well as a great deal of filing space. Once applications are received and processed, they are split among five editors at the magazine, who spend two months rating the restaurants.

The editors follow a set of rules but are also permitted a fair amount of freedom to interpret the lists. If a restaurant's list is on the borderline of two awards, the award is decided by committee. And if a restaurant is up for a Grand Award, an editor will visit it.

''First, the editor eats, hopefully anonymously, and puts the sommelier through his paces,'' Mr. Matthews said. Shortly after that, the editor will return to interview the sommelier and the owner and to inspect the cellars. He will ask for a dozen wines, randomly selected from the list, and the sommelier must produce them. These restaurants are not inspected every year. Montrachet, which has kept the Grand Award since 1994, has not been reinspected since. Galileo, an Italian restaurant in Washington that advertises its Grand Award on its on-hold phone message, won the honor in 1998. It was reinspected in 2000. But Rotisserie for Beef and Bird in Houston, which has had a Grand Award since 1988, has never been reinspected.

For restaurants that are never visited, Mr. Matthews said, ''we depend on the honesty of the submission, and we basically make an assumption that a serious wine list, a serious menu and a compelling letter is an assurance that the restaurant is serious about what they do. However, we do request our readers follow up with us if a restaurant with an award disappointed them.''

Mr. Matthews said that over the years, the magazine has taken away a handful of awards based on customer feedback and subsequent inspections.

It may not take such a great amount of creativity to improve an eclectic list. As Daniel Johnnes, the wine director for Montrachet, said, ''What I think may happen is that people will have the wines, but they will fill in a gap here and there. Also you have wines on your list that are in short supply, and you only have three bottles of it.'' So even if you have sold out of it, you keep it on the list until you get it in again.

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The magazine said that the application fee helps discourage inflated or counterfeit lists. ''By requiring them to resubmit each year, we raise the cost of fraud,'' Mr. Matthews said. ''They have to remember their phony wine list and duplicate it. Even though it's easy for them to scam us once, it's not easy to scam us twice.''

Karen King, the new wine director at Gramercy Tavern, said people have taken note of the new fee but have absorbed it as a necessary business cost. ''People in the business like to have Wine Spectator on their side,'' Ms. King said. In fact, several people interviewed for this article declined to comment on the record, for fear of angering Wine Spectator's editors. Still, the number of restaurants applying for an award has continued to grow.

For some restaurants, a Wine Spectator award is a crucial stamp of approval. Jim Prescott, the wine director for Revival Grill in Greensboro, N.C., said that when the restaurant opened eight years ago, ''we were a small 120-seat bistro, and we wanted that to be a calling card.''

''I think it helps,'' he added. ''I really do. It certainly helps with travelers from out of town.'' He depends on the award to draw diners for Greensboro's furniture market, which brings thousands of people into town twice a year. And the restaurant uses the award in its advertisements in hotel magazines and the Yellow Pages.

But Ms. King of Gramercy Tavern said, ''I don't put much credence in it, because I saw so many mediocre wine lists that have the Award of Excellence, so I thought, 'Gosh, it doesn't mean much.' ''

However, when she was the wine director at Union Square Cafe, and her list was promoted to a Best of Award of Excellence, she was thrilled.

And that is the troubling imbalance of these awards. Winners of the Grand Award, like Daniel, Bern's Steak House in Tampa, Fla., and Aureole Las Vegas, take the honor extremely seriously. Some restaurants spend years and enormous sums of money to get their wine programs in shape.

Babbo, which has been vying for the Grand Award for several years now, has put several million dollars into its wine inventory, according to Joe Bastianich, an owner. ''I guess the other awards are steps to the ultimate goal of the Grand Award. But it doesn't have the consequence, it doesn't have the global impact,'' Mr. Bastianich said. Wine now makes up 40 percent of his restaurant's revenue, Mr. Bastianich said, so the awards take on more significance.

A few years ago, Tribeca Grill made it a goal to win the Grand. ''Basically we looked at the restaurants that have won it and the size of their lists and positioned ourselves to get it,'' said David Gordon, the restaurant's wine director. Three years ago, there were 600 wines on its list. Now there are about 1,500. It won the award last year.

The effort paid off in more ways than one. ''The publicity of the Wine Spectator was huge,'' Mr. Gordon said. New Grand Award winners get a full-page article in Wine Spectator, along with a photo. Mr. Gordon hung his Grand Award plaque above the coat check at the entrance to the restaurant.

''When you get the Grand Award,'' said Mr. Johnnes of Montrachet, ''it has a tremendous impact on business.''

But winners in all three categories get a certificate or plaque. Distinguishing between them is a lot to ask of consumers, many perhaps unaware that thousands of awards are given. For instance, I Trulli and Gramercy Tavern, both New York restaurants known for having stellar wine lists, have won only the Award of Excellence. (In fact, when Gramercy failed to win a Best of Award of Excellence in 2000, its past wine director stopped applying.) And Legal Sea Foods in McLean, Va., part of a chain of restaurants that are hardly standouts, won an Award of Excellence too.

This system has had a negative impact on some restaurateurs, who have become cynical about the program, even as they continue to apply each year.

''A lot of people see it,'' said Joan Gillcrist, the owner of Andiamo! in Santa Fe, N.M. ''And if you weigh it against other forms of advertising, it's not that bad. The worst-case scenario is it's advertising. The best case is that it's a legitimate award. That's the way I play it out in my head.''

Correction: July 16, 2003, Wednesday A picture caption last Wednesday with an article about Wine Spectator honors for restaurants misidentified an award prominently displayed by the Tribeca Grill. It was the magazine's Grand Award, the highest, not its Award of Excellence.